


Wilfully to Misunderstand

by twined



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Lizzington - Freeform, Red is so desperately in love it kills me, UST, Unrequited Love, also Tom but that asshole's just barely mentioned, i can't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4010338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twined/pseuds/twined
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the long and pregnant pause before he told her, "No."   -Red-centric Lizzington drabble, set during 1x10, Anslo Garrick-</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wilfully to Misunderstand

**Author's Note:**

> Title is quoted from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Criminal minds, as Red loved to remind the FBI, twisted around in unexpected ways. That was just the natural conclusion of dealing with twisted people. How such linear, shallow-thinking agents all became part of a special tasks unit dealing with problems far outside the FBI’s legal jurisdiction—well. Red had collapsed _smarter_ governments. It was the _bureaucracy_ that kept America running, no matter how corrupt.

Criminal minds like Red’s not only twisted, but also doubled back, took an elevator down, pushed a bookcase out of the way, and punched in a secret code.

To maintain his aloof and sardonic persona, his Blacklist plotting, his secondary and tertiary and quaternary plans—all of this required constant juggling. One factor could displace a dozen others with just a gentle nudge. A murder could shatter several layers of planning, or it could be all that held them together.

Constantly calculating on several levels at a time exhausted most people. That Red made a habit of it, kept him alive.

While Red had always known that his relationship with Mrs. Elizabeth Keen would be a difficult and dangerous one, he hadn’t expected the most potent of dangers: being near her seemed to make his brain short-circuit. Despite the pictures, she had still been a little girl in his mind. Faced with her reality, her quickened breathing, the focus of her anger, that image gave way to the undeniable presence of a woman.

Purely by habit he could keep up his unblinking sarcasm and his survival instinct. Near her, though, at least one layer of thought became overridden with her scent, another weakened by the temptation of her auburn hair. Occasionally a level stare into her too-blue eyes could stop his mind entirely for the space of a heartbeat.

After the first few cases, he’d attempted to keep his distance, contacting her primarily by phone. Unfortunately, this abstinence just made him all the more drunk at his next taste of her. Her lips simply forming his name could electrify him.

At first he used the distraction as a training exercise. Any practice at honing his focus could save his life, or hers.

Once, then twice, he slipped up and indulged himself. Allowed a touch, a breathless moment.

Tamping down these feelings was—difficult, after so many years of not feeling them at all. If it were mere sexual attraction, he might seduce her and be done with it. Unfortunately, admiration and respect had snuck in too. Lizzie was still a happily married woman and she deserved more. More than her husband, and more than whatever he could offer. Stability and devotion, a man who’d never hurt her, babies if she wanted them.

Red had already lost his chance at that kind of life.

Besides, Lizzie was absolutely necessary for his plans with the Blacklist. Irreplaceable. He couldn’t risk further complications.

When he found out about the Mole, he wrote off his dark and possessive emotions by telling himself they were about protecting his precious plans, his past, and not his ridiculous and tentative candlelight of hope for the future.

In the middle of the night, after a few glasses of scotch, neat, he sometimes knew better. Meeting her gaze from the other side of the thick protective glass while Anslo Garrick held a gun to her head, Red knew better.

He shouldn’t have been blindsided when she asked. It was a manipulation he’d toyed with, even a cover he’d briefly suggested. At the time it was another ploy to keep his distance. But when his Lizzie asked, genuinely asked if he was her father—as ever, his mind short-circuited briefly.

On one level, there was pride at her astuteness and gumption.

Another level considered saying yes, playing it up to control her. How easy it would be to use her emotions, exploiting that ache for a missing parent. He’d made a promise not to lie to her, and he had no intention of breaking it, but—what if he just hung up? She’d make her own assumptions, and the rest could move so smoothly…

The deepest part of him thrashed and snarled and sobbed, faced suddenly with the irrefutable fact that Lizzie would never think of him the way a woman thinks of a man. As she thought of her husband. Being charming and wry, dangerous, yet the only man she turned to, did not negate their age gap in her mind.

He’d never expected her to want him, but neither was he expecting to be comparable to her _father._

He fought with himself. Lizzie was the first person in a long time to catch him so unprepared that he couldn’t even manage a scathing quip. If he’d faced this feeling sooner, maybe he would have known how to respond, but—

Too late. She was waiting for an answer. Red could imagine her vulnerable expression, scrapes of the day barely scabbed over. Her mounting anger at his pause.

He suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of further misleading her. He couldn’t bear to fade into her background as a paternal figurine. He couldn’t relinquish all chances of ever feeling her lips brush his. And so he did something for her that he very rarely did for anyone: told her the simple, straightforward truth.

“No.”

And, consumed with a beast he now identified as jealousy above and beyond simple protectiveness, he added, “Lizzie. Be careful of your husband.”

Before he could utter anything else stupid and impulsive, he hung up.

He did relish her name one more time, though, as he reclined his head and sighed.

“Oh, Lizzie.”

Covering his eyes, Red resolved to pour himself a large scotch as soon as possible.


End file.
